


she looks like sleep to the freezing

by nosecoffee



Series: our hearts break 'cause i got lost [2]
Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Angst, Blatant Hurt, Cynthia-Centric, F/F, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, I'm humanising the parents, Implied/Referenced Attempted Suicide, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Internalized Homophobia, Minor Character Death, Pain, Pining, Post canon, Pre Canon, Romance, Secretly in love with each other, Sexuality Crisis, She is very sad, Suicide, Tragic Background Mom Shipping, background pining, but it gets better at the end, look - Freeform, they're all bad at communicating, they're all idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-21 00:31:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15545646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: Cynthia wonders what exactly about Heidi's haunting blue eyes are bothering her. Maybe it’s just because they’re so big and earnest and they keep staring right through Cynthia as if she can see her deepest secrets and regrets and hopes. Something about Heidi makes her feel bare. She bumps her elbow into Heidi's ribs. "You gonna marry him?"Heidi snorts, crudely. "Not unless every girl at school stops being interested in him.” She says.





	she looks like sleep to the freezing

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Cherry Wine" by Hozier
> 
> So I had a lot of really good reactions to my Heidi fic and I was like "who doesn't get a lot of love? Cynthia" so here we are. I think you can probably tell I had a lot of bi-Cynthia feels.

Teenagers seem to think they're invincible. They seem to think that nothing bad can possibly happen to them because they're too young - they keep odd hours and don't explain why because they're too young to be doing anything wrong.

A teenager dies and the ones around them are hit with a shock wave large enough to knock them down, knock some sense into their thick skulls. It stinks of something awfully sinister, it sounds like _there, get it, yet?_

And Cynthia would know.

She lives in a small town - real small, down a bit more south. Everyone knows everyone, everyone goes to the same church, same school, same pub. There are eleven kids in her kindergarten class, and seven in her high school, besides her older sister. Cynthia goes through life like everything matters and nothing matters all at the same time, blending into the background, silently going along with everything.

It feels like any second she’ll fade away. Nobody would notice. She’d be walking home from school and then suddenly she just wouldn’t be there, at all.

So when bright and bubbly Millie Carter gets struck and killed by a truck just off the road from her family's farm on the way home from school, it rocks the entire town to its core.

Cynthia wasn't aware that Millie's death would hit her the way it does. She and Millie ran in different circles, but Cynthia’s sure they'd been to a few of each other's birthday parties. And now she’s _dead_.

Her parents weep and sob through her funeral, and there’s a pile of flowers by the fence where she died by the end of the week.

Someone suggests they all gather in the music room at lunch, the day after she dies. Blonde and beautiful Layla Nister, Millie’s best friend, leads the gathering; just the six of them, sitting in a circle, and she asks if people want to say something about Millie. Jeffrey Lord, Millie's boyfriend, sniffs and says they should do something in her memory.

Cynthia sits through it, arms folded over her chest, confused and upset. It feels like losing an old, beloved toy. She’s not sure when she stopped being friends with Millie, or why she feels so guilty, now, but she does, and it confuses her.

Layla puts her hand on one of Jeffrey's and they smile, wetly, at each other. They organise a fundraiser to help Millie’s family settle back down, having been financially wrecked by the cost of her funeral. Cynthia awkwardly puts a ten dollar bill in the bucket and watches Layla frown at her, as if she expected Cynthia to contribute more.

Cynthia's family is poor. Probably one of the poorest in town, couldn't even put spare change in the box they passed around at church; that was for groceries, at the end of the week. They could barely afford to be sending Cynthia's older sister, Chris, to college. But Chris is insistent. It isn't like Cynthia’s smart enough to go to college, she’d say, much to her family’s reluctant agreement. Everyone knows Chris is the smart one of them. Cynthia’s just pretty. If she’s lucky, she'll end up a trophy wife.

Her parents are well aware that if they send Chris to college, they won’t have the money to do the same with Cynthia, a year later.

The Carter family gratefully takes the money from the fundraiser, hugging Layla and Jeffrey in turn, sell their farm and move away. Just like that, the town is three people short. Cynthia feels ghosts on the street, brushing against her skin as she walks home from school. It seems that the harder everyone tries to hold together the more cracks appear.

Not long after that, Cynthia turns a corner and finds Layla and Jeffrey pressed together against a wall. She immediately backtracks, gets out of there as soon as she can, feeling sick and embarrassed. She thinks maybe it's a one off thing. She thinks they just need comfort and that the other will understand. She thinks it's none of her business.

She thought they hadn't seen her. But Layla approaches her later that day, at her locker, and smiles sweetly. “Cyn,” she says, and Cynthia can't put her finger on why she shivers. “About earlier. You saw me, with Jeffrey.”

Cynthia blushes, the memory rising to the forefront of her mind. “I wasn't gonna tell anyone.” She assures the other girl, biting her lip. “It's not my business.”

“Thanks.” Layla says, and it sounds genuine. She pushes a lock of blonde hair shine her ear and looks up at Cynthia with her big brown eyes. She's a tiny bit shorter than Cynthia. “I just don't think anyone would react well if they knew..”

“Like I said,” Cynthia tells her, closing her locker, “it's not my business.”

Layla begins to make it her business. She makes it everyone's business. For god's sake, they're not exactly being subtle. It's like every time she turns a corner, there they are; heads bowed, too close, over a book; hands on each other's thighs during class; locked together in something passionate in one of the library stacks. It's a wonder Cynthia’s not heard Chris bitching about it at home.

Layla starts sitting with Cynthia at lunch, accompanied more and more by Jeffrey, who seems to have found solace in Layla. Layla’s family has probably the most money than anyone in town, and perhaps she sees Cynthia as a pet project.

She teaches Cynthia to do her hair and makeup, she gossips with her, and has her father pick up Cynthia and drive her to school so that she doesn’t have to walk. Chris sys she’s being converted. Her parents dismiss it, idly.

(“I don't think they see me,” Cynthia admits, while Layla paints her nails, one night. Layla frowns.

“So make them.” She says, as if it's as simple as that. It might be, Cynthia doesn't know.

“How?” And she grins, and Cynthia’s stomach twists and flutters.)

They don’t dismiss it when Cynthia comes home from a night over at Layla’s with her hair dyed platinum silver. They yell. They ask what was so wrong with her natural hair colour. Cynthia can’t answer. She can’t hear anything.

Layla makes everything feel fuzzy for hours after she leaves. She makes Cynthia feel like she’s floating, like perhaps she wasn’t even there in the first place.

(Cynthia doesn’t realise what that feeling is until years later, when she arrives back from her aborted honeymoon and sees Heidi, standing there, pale but alive. The relief. The fact that she could have been gone if Larry hadn’t thought fast enough, and the pain a thought like that brings on.)

Chris sneers at her. Calls Cynthia a suck up and slams the door in her face.

Cynthia doesn’t care. Suddenly it’s not just passing time. Now it’s Layla and Jeffrey _and_ Cynthia, perhaps just a tag-along, but _still there_ . Not fading, not gone, but _there_.

She hangs out with them on top of Layla’s new car, at the edge of town, gazing out at the setting sun and talking about nothing. She talks with them at her locker. She falls asleep with her head in Layla’s lap, her fingers carding through her hair.

And then, she goes to get popcorn for them, at the drive-in, and when she returns, the car is rocking, lightly, and she can hear Layla, inside. The windows fog up, and Cynthia just stands there, trying to decide what to do, because she _can’t_ just _stand there_.

The popcorn drops from her hands and she run, when it spills, all yellow and lit up by the projection, on the ground

She runs halfway home and falls over in a ditch by the side of the road, looking up by the unclouded sky. The moon is so bright she could look around and see everything perfectly. She doesn’t know why she feels upset, dejected, embarrassed.

(She won’t admit to herself that it’s because she didn’t want Jeffrey in the picture, at all. He’s so inferior to the whole big picture, he’s a small and unimportant side plot. If the car was rocking, she wanted to make it rock. If Layla was making those noises, Cynthia wanted to make her make them.)

They ask her where she went the next day, as if Cynthia returning with popcorn while they were having sex in the back of Layla’s car wouldn’t have been a problem. Cynthia feels unsure and embarrassed. She mumbles some excuse about having a stomach bug and avoids them for the rest of the day.

And then her father gets a job - a high paying job, a job that can send Cynthia and Chris to college twice over- a few county's over, the one up north practically surrounded by national forests. And so they go.

Cynthia forgets about Millie Carter, about Jeffrey and about Layla and their car rocking in front of her.

She goes.

(And just like that, the town is four more people short.)

~  
  
And she meets Heidi, who, in turn, introduces her to Larry. Heidi is pretty, nice blue eyes and wavy blonde hair. She seems like a kind of fun loving girl. The day after Cynthia meets her, on the way to their new house, Cynthia rides her bike to Á La Mode and hangs out around the counter to chat with Heidi. Heidi is an inch or two shorter than her, and wears shorts and tank tops under her apron, at work.

"How do you get here, everyday?" Cynthia asks her.

"My bike." Heidi replies, jerking her head in the direction of the window, and Cynthia sees a bike tied to the tree, outside. "My best friend bought one for me when I was seven and kept buying new ones when I grew out of them."

She looks rather fond when she says that. "Sounds like some best friend." Cynthia says, wondering if everyone in this town is like kind, pretty Heidi and her mysterious, seemingly rich best friend. She thinks it would be an improvement from Layla’s cold smile and Jeffrey’s solemn ignorance, and Layla’s fingers running through Cynthia’s hair, the cold bathroom tiles under her bare legs.

"He really is." Heidi agrees, serving some customers with a fake smile and sighing when she turns back to Cynthia. "Some days when it gets too hot he comes to pick me up."

"Wow." Cynthia says and wonders what exactly about Heidi's haunting blue eyes are bothering her. Maybe it’s just because they’re so big and earnest and they keep staring right through Cynthia as if she can see her deepest secrets and regrets and hopes. Something about Heidi makes her feel bare. She bumps her elbow into Heidi's ribs. "You gonna marry him?"

Heidi snorts, crudely. "Not unless every girl at school stops being interested in him.” She says. “Besides, he'd never want to marry such a poor girl like me." Heidi hugs her tray to her chest and Cynthia finds herself frowning at this girl.

"So what?” She asks, idly wondering if it would be as voyeuristic as last time, watching two people fall into something desperate and inevitable. “If you love him-"

"Heidi, triple chocolate for me!" Says a sudden, loud voice, coming through the door, with the jingle of the bell. The boy who enters is taller than the both of them, with dark brown hair and an actual receding hairline. He’s got sunglasses pushed up into his hair and car keys dangling from his index finger.

Heidi grins when she sees him and when he picks her up, around the waist, spinning her around the waist, Cynthia finds she can’t take her eyes off him. She doesn’t even register the way Heidi giggles hysterically and bats him away when he finally sets her back down. He meets her eyes and stops, staring.

Heidi looks between them with a soft grin. “Larry, this is Cynthia Holtzer.” She says, gesturing between them, and patting Larry’s elbow. “Cynthia, this is my best friend, Larry Murphy.”

Cynthia holds out a hand, vaguely. “A pleasure.” Larry holds her hand firmly when he shakes it. She sees, out the corner of her eye, as Heidi looks between them, and her grin slips.

“I’ll go get your ice cream, Larry.” She says, and wanders off to the counter. Cynthia’s frozen in place, her hand in Larry’s.

“Where you from?” He asks.

“Does it matter?” She replies, cocking her head to the side and some of her bangs fall in her eyes. She tries to conjure Layla’s natural alluring air as she speaks, never losing eye contact. “I think what matters is the here and now.”

Larry pauses, and then he smiles. “I like you, Cynthia Holtzer.” He tells her, finally releasing her hand.

Cynthia grins back at him, dropping every thought of Layla from her mind. “I like you too, Larry Murphy.”

(He asks her out, two days later, when they see each other at the arcade. Heidi’s too busy playing Donkey Kong to see the way they're flirting. She notices when Cynthia blushes deeply and says, “I'd love to. Why not start now?” She turns and frowns, and loses the round she's playing.)

(Cynthia tells jokes to her until she smiles again, not liking seeing Heidi’s naturally sunny face all turned around.)

~

Falling for Larry Murphy is somehow easier than falling for Layla Nister had been. Cynthia isn’t sure why. Maybe it’s because he’s _right there_ , within arms reach, instead of off in the distance, or all the way up in the sky, or in the backseat of the car, at the drive-in, ten feet in front of her.

Maybe it’s because he holds her hand when she leans into him, and drives her to school when her bike’s tire pops and Chris leaves her behind, and kisses her on the cheek and the neck and the lips when they’re alone. Maybe it’s because he sees her, actually sees that she’s reaching for him, across all the space between them. Maybe he just feels the same way, and that’s enough for Cynthia.

There's Heidi, on the other hand, who’s soft like a slow warm day when it’s just her and Cynthia, and witty and sharp like something Cynthia can’t quite define, when Larry’s there, too. Heidi is something else entirely. And the way she looks at Larry makes Cynthia think of the way she used to look at Layla.

As it turns out, Larry and Heidi are almost a package deal, and Cynthia honestly wouldn’t have it any other way. Where Larry’s all reserved and cautious Heidi is loud and unafraid. More often than not, they hang out around Heidi, at Á La Mode, and chat to her between customers. They distract her when she’s in a good mood, and let their gazes and touches linger when she’s not.

Cynthia’s falling so fast she can’t quite keep track of _who_ she’s falling for. The idea of falling for Larry seems so inevitable and desperate (like foggy windows in a drive-in), but the idea of falling for Heidi seems unknown and terrifying (like a ditch, by the side of the road, where the moon is shining as bright as the sun). She doesn’t try to make sense of it. She can’t deal with the consequences of trying to work it out.

And the minute it’s colder and Larry finally takes her to the local (less-run-down) drive-in, like he’s been promising, Cynthia lets him kiss her deeper than usual. Cynthia lets him lead her into the backseat and everything it implies. She's going to get rid of the before, make something new, a memory that she'll refuse to let tarnish.

Cynthia gets lost in her own mind, wondering why she has to linger on Layla so much when Layla never looked at her as more than a mindless third-wheel, while Larry’s hands find purchase just under the hem of her shirt, on her hips. Either way, she pushes Larry down so his back is against the car seat and forgets about Layla and Jeffrey - and Heidi.

She lets go.

~

Cynthia meets Steven Patel in study hall. His blonde hair is cut into a stupid haircut, but he's kinda pretty good at math, so she sits near him and gets him to help her with homework, sometimes.

He's nice, in a vague kind of way. He's pretty, in a superficial kind of way. Like if she looked too closely, his careful smile would splinter into something morbid and ugly. His father’s from Iceland, but his mom’s American, and insisted that Steven take her last name instead of doing that complicated Iceland thing where his dad's name is his last name with “son” tacked on the end. Steven tells her this one Thursday afternoon, and Cynthia almost dozes off.

He has about three girlfriends in the time that Cynthia’s been with Larry for eight months. He has no problem in confiding in her about the awkward sexual situations he stumbles into.

(“Steven, if I have to hear about you struggling with a fucking condom wrapper one more time I will strangle you.” She grumbles from behind her English reading. He flushes in the face and mumbles something about lube making everything more complicated.)

Whatever. It's something decidedly normal, something so utterly simple it makes her forget the way being with Heidi and Larry, or just one of them makes her feel breathless and lightheaded. Steven makes everything seem so mundane where Larry and Heidi make everything a dream. Cynthia isn't sure if she likes it, or not.

“You and Larry Murphy, huh?” He asks, once, between explaining formulas to her. She looks up, curiously, not sure where his line of questioning is going.

“Sure.” Cynthia says, even though she's well aware he knows about her and Larry. Who wouldn't? It wasn't as if they were subtle, and so many people must have seen them at the drive-in. “Like, since the beginning of the year, I guess.”

“Right.” Steven nods, to himself, and bends his head over his paper. Silence, for a second, and then he sighs, looking up again, a conflicted look on his face. “He's a good guy.”

“You think so?”

“I don't know him all that well, but yeah, I think so.”

It seems like he’s hesitating, meaning to say something and then chickening out. Cynthia rolls her eyes, but gives him a curious look, all the same. “Why are we talking about this?” She asks, leaning forward on her elbows.

Steven’s eyebrows furrow and he looks away from her, looking reluctant. “I just think you could do better.” He admits, quietly. It’s not the response she was expecting, and she kind of recoils from him.

“Oh, yeah?” She huffs, trying to seem aloof.

“Yeah.” Steven agrees, gaining confidence, and Cynthia regrets giving him a foot in the door. He is exactly the type of guy to take this fragile peace of a table between them and throw all his cards down, out in the open. There are some things that should remain close to ones chest. “You're pretty and smart and everything, and all he is is rich. You deserve someone who-”

“I'm gonna stop you right there.” She interrupts, holding up a hand. She doesn't want to hear what she ‘deserves’. She doesn't want to hear what he thinks of her, what he thinks of Larry, his outside opinion on their private relationship. She doesn't want to hear his opinion when all his relationships are more public than they should be. They're different, and Steven doesn't understand that. “I know you're dating Alice Kleinman, and I have no doubts that she'd curb stomp me if I let you continue on this way.”

He crooks an eyebrow, and smiles, a bit. “Is that the _only_ reason you're rejecting me?” Steven asks, and Cynthia frowns.

“Well, that and the fact that I actually love Larry,” she tells him, primly, gathering her things in her arms and pushing the chair back with her knees, “so I think all ‘you deserve better’ bullshit should be archived for a rainy day.”

~

When they’re late to the picnic Cynthia thinks for a second that maybe they’re sleeping together. When they arrive, and Heidi’s hair is a mess and her face is red, and Larry’s mouth is set in a fake smile, she almost lets herself believe that they’re sleeping together.

She sits, tensely beside the two of them, seated either side of her, and smiles politely through lunch. Her parents leave after lunch is finished, but Cynthia insists that Heidi and Larry stay for the rest of the afternoon, insisting that they show her around. “After all, you guys know this place way better than I do.”

Maybe it’s a ploy so that they’ll have to drive her home, maybe it’s a plot to keep them with her, where she can see them, maybe she’s just paranoid and sticking her nose and dumb feelings into their close friendship.

They agree, though, and as soon as she pushes aside her paranoia it’s a good afternoon. They adventure through the orchard, climbing trees and dipping their feet in the creek and sitting side by side on the hill, watching the sun set. Larry falls asleep when the sky goes dark and Heidi hides her face in her sleeve as if Cynthia won’t notice her crying. She doesn't let her see.

Cynthia holds her in her arms without question. Whatever’s going on is obviously more complicated than her best friend and her boyfriend sleeping together. Whatever’s going on is none of her business.

Heidi tells her the next day, eating ice cream on the pier by the old fish and chips store. All worry fades and all Cynthia can do is hope Steven Patel treats her right.

~

Cynthia’s never liked Alice Kleinman. Hearing what she did to Heidi makes her blood boil. She corners her in the bathroom.

“You slapped Heidi Hansen?” Cynthia questions when Alice is washing her hands. Alice looks up and rolls her eyes when she sees the furious look contorting Cynthia’s features.

“Oh, don't you dare try to protect that slut.” She complains, as if she's been justifying it all day. Cynthia guesses it's all people have been talking about. If she didn't know Heidi, if she was just another person in the crowd, she supposes she'd be talking about it.

“She's not a slut,” Cynthia spits, and when Alice looks surprised, adds, “you bitch.”

“ _Really_ ?” Alice asks, and it's the time that stings. As if Cynthia’s some dumb bimbo who can't possibly begin to understand what Alice is saying. As if Alice is a scholar and Cynthia’s just some idiot. “She _slept_ with my _boyfriend_ , and now she’s pregnant. How does that _not_ make her a slut?”

Cynthia sees red, and she takes a menacing step towards Alice, her right index finger raised as if to reprimand. “Call her that again, and I _swear_ you'll regret it.” She hisses, uncontrollably angry. Heidi doesn't deserve this. She's not what people are calling her. She's better than this. They just haven't given her the chance to prove it.

“Oh yeah?” Her words shake, but her face is set in a grim, vaguely upset expression. “What would you do if she slept with _Larry_?”

Cynthia freezes. Of course she had feared, that day at the orchard, that that was what had happened, but it never hit her fully what that would mean. Her boyfriend and the girl she - the girl who reminded her too much of another girl she'd known. It didn't seem like them, no matter how longing the looks they threw at each other were. But if it had been Larry and not Steven Patel, at that party, that night, in that bed - Cynthia and Larry were even at that party, even persuaded Heidi to drink some beer with them-

If it had been _Larry_ -

Alice takes her pause as if her pause means that Cynthia’s suddenly changed sides. “She's not worth protecting.” She says, softly. “The sooner she's out of all of our lives, the better.”

Cynthia doesn't even think before slapping Alice so hard across the face she stumbles back against the wall. “If you say a word about her, so much as _glance_ in her _direction_ , I will make you regret being born. Get it?”

“Stay away from me, Holtzer. I don't need crazy bitches like you and Heidi in my life.” Cynthia doesn't know why she lets Alice leave instead of slamming her into the wall, but she does. She regrets it when Heidi’s run out of school by gossip and graffiti accusing her of being a whore and a slut and the scum of the goddamn earth.

She regrets it when the light begins to fade from her.

~

Cynthia gets worried sick about Heidi. Even after the abortion that she called off, Cynthia worries. Heidi’s father dies and Cynthia feels helpless. Larry lies by her side in bed and breathes deeply to stop himself from crying, admitting that he feels like he’s losing Heidi. “She won’t let me help her, Cyn.” He says, his voice tapering off as he breaks off.

“Let me try.” Cynthia urges him, taking his hand and squeezing it. She knows she can’t even begin to comprehend the complexities of Heidi pulling away after years of friendship. “You know Heidi. We need to be there for her so that when she finally falls over we can help her back to her feet.”

“Would you try?” He asks, and he looks at her with the most earnest look in his eyes she’s ever seen. Heidi once told her that ever since his father died he's never been good at sad things. He loves like a hurricane, but everything sad is trapped inside where he won't touch it.

“You know I wouldn't lie to you.” She replies, not quite knowing if it’s true.

Heidi isn’t as grateful, the next day, on her doorstep. She looks like a mess, face red and streaked with dried tears, belly sticking out, eyes sharp and narrowed. “That’s not _your_ money, Cynthia,” she snaps when Cynthia explains why she’s there. It stings that she uses her full name, after nearly a year of just _Cyn_.

“Larry and I just want to help you, Heidi.” She pleads, stopping the door from closing with all the strength she has.

“You can’t just offer me another person’s money.” Heidi tells her in a sharp voice through the crack in the door. “I’m not a charity case.” She forces the door closed and Cynthia forces back tears. Something about watching her bright-eyed friend descend into hopelessness and grief is cracking Cynthia open from the inside.

~

So, they wait. Cynthia hates it.

~

The night Heidi finally breaks and calls Larry, he’s up and running to his car within seconds of taking the call. (He's always running to Heidi, always running away from Cynthia.)

He stays the night with her. And the night after that. And every other night that they aren’t studying together. Cynthia pushes aside her jealousy enough to ask if she can come with him, after school. (She's not quite sure who she's jealous of.)

Heidi actually seems a bit happy to see her between shifts at Á La Mode and the library. She thanks her for the banana bread she brings. She kisses her cheek and falls asleep on the couch. Cynthia fits Heidi into her too-empty schedule, again, relieved to have her back, even if she’s not as bright-eyed and fun-loving as she used to be. She’s well aware that things change, and sometimes they don’t change back.

If she thinks she sees Heidi staring when Cynthia and Larry have a small moment of intimacy, she pretends she didn’t. After all, why would Heidi be feeling the same as Cynthia feels, sometimes? Why would Heidi ever feel like if only she would turn and _look_ at Cynthia, she’d understand the inner turmoil that she feels about them.

Because Larry is safe and familiar, and Heidi is uncharted territory that Cynthia sometimes wants _so badly_ to chart, despite how wrong that is, the same as it was wrong with Layla.

~

The brightness Cynthia always admired about her fades very slowly across Heidi’s pregnancy. Cynthia doesn’t know what to say to make it better. She doesn’t think there is anything to say to make it better.

(If there was, she’d have said it already.)

~

They're on Heidi’s couch, supposedly watching _Ferris Bueller’s Day Off_ , but instead kissing. Kissing Larry, Cynthia finds, is often better than she remembers. She wonders if everyone thinks that when they kiss someone. That's it's always better than they remember.

It's been a while since they've been alone, together, and Heidi went to bed at least an hour ago, looking pale and exhausted. Cynthia works her hands up the front of his shirt and Larry pulls back, a bit. “Should we be doing this, here?” He asks, casting an anxious look at the stairs. “What if Heidi walks in?”

(Some selfish part of Cynthia wants her to walk in. Something in her that says that if Heidi saw them, like this, it would only solidify that Larry was hers. Except that, if Heidi walked in, it wouldn't just be about staking claim, it would also be _look how good I can be, let me in_. The thought scares her.)

Cynthia shakes her head. “She won't.” And she goes back to kissing him, better than a moment ago. It escalates until he's on his back in the couch, and both their shirts are discarded on the floor. The landing creaks but Cynthia doesn't pull away. She feels greedy, wanting the both of them all to herself, as wrong as that is.

(He doesn't know yet. God. She's such an idiot, she hasn't told him and she doesn't know how to, and it's all so confusing and stressful, and she just wants to go back to normal, but it's too late and _she doesn't know how to tell him that she's-_ )

The stairs creak, a moment later, and Larry pulls away. He sits up and holds Cynthia to his chest. He's so warm. Heidi’s making her way, slowly, down the steps, her huge belly out in front of her. “You okay?” Larry asks her and Heidi looks up sharply. She's pale and wide-eyed, and Cynthia can tell, immediately that something's wrong.

Heidi doesn't answer until she's at the bottom of the stairs and Cynthia can see that her pyjama pants are soaked. It takes her too long to realise. Heidi frowns, vaguely, not really looking at them, just looking in their general direction. “I think my water broke.”

~

She and Larry sit, tensely, in the waiting room, wincing when they hear her scream in the next room over. Larry looks on the verge of tears the whole time. He looked on the verge of tears when they hauled Heidi into the back of the car and sped the entire way to the hospital.

(Heidi had pretty much collapsed into Cynthia’s arms when she had gone to her. She sobbed in pain, and Cynthia struggled to lower her onto the floor, not able to hold her weight. There was suddenly blood soaking her pyjama pants as well and she started screaming. Cynthia was terrified.)

She squeezes his hand, and he squeezes back, hard.

The screaming drops off and Larry looks stricken.

A nurse comes out fifteen minutes later and tells them she’s fallen asleep, and they should head home for some sleep as well. Larry looks as if he’s about to demand to see Heidi anyway, but Cynthia tugs on his arm and he follows her out to the parking lot, without a word.

The only thing he says before dropping her home is, “I thought she was going to _die_.” Cynthia doesn’t know how to console him. So, she doesn’t say anything at all.

~

After everything, Larry proposing after graduation is the last thing Cynthia’s expecting, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t happy about it.

She still hasn’t told him about the baby yet, she isn’t ready. She’ll tell him on their honeymoon. Larry told her once that he’d always wanted kids. Maybe not this early, but he dotes on Evan as if he was his own son, so maybe it will be okay.

Cynthia involves Heidi in the wedding planning as much as she possibly can, considering her motherhood and the gauntness of her face, nowadays. Heidi rocks Evan to sleep in her arms while helping Cynthia pick a napkin colour that doesn't look cheap or overly expensive.

She looks confused when Cynthia picks a dress that’s rather unflattering around the midriff - she doesn't know it's because she wants to hide her small baby bump - but accepts it all the same and tells her she looks beautiful. For a second, the Heidi she’d known two years earlier shines through and Cynthia feels something fall heavily in her stomach. Something that she’s felt before, and always associated with Larry.

She can’t help but wonder why, in that moment, she feels like Heidi’s fading away.

~

Cynthia feels scared. Not because of the wedding, not because Chris is sneering at her from the front row. But because Heidi seems more absent than usual today. After the wedding, she drags her into every wedding photo she can, trying to see her smile without an emptiness in her eyes.

If she didn’t know her parents would wig out if she told them she thought something was going on with Heidi, she’d ask them for advice, but she doesn’t want them to worry.

Heidi comes to life she she gives a speech at the reception, almost bringing Cynthia to tears. She didn’t know Heidi saw half the things she talks about in her speech. About the summer days in the orchard or the old mill bridge at night or the kisses in the snow. She didn't know Heidi saw and remembered and brought them to life in perfect tone colour.

Cynthia lets her worry drain when she sees Heidi smiling at them when they dance, and focuses on how happy Larry looks, how he kisses her, how she’s going to love being with him. How they’re going to love their baby.

They drive away to the airport, and Cynthia waves out the window. She only cares that Heidi waves back.

~

She tells him after he's showered, the night they arrive at their hotel. Larry looks awed. He drops to his knees and touches her slightly-rounded stomach with the tips of his fingers and asks her how long she's known. He isn't angry when Cynthia tells him that she's known for months.

He just looks up at her with that awed look on his face and tells her, earnestly, that he loves her. She drops down and hugs him until they topple over and giggles when they do.

It's a good moment. She wishes it would last forever.

~

(Two days later, after Larry answers a call, in the middle of the night, and wakes her up as he rushes around the room, getting dressed, looking as though he’s just seen a ghost, Cynthia says to him, “It’s Heidi, isn’t it?”

Larry pauses, looking at her with wide eyes. “Did you know she was going to do this?” He asks, voice dripping with panic.

“Do what?” Cynthia asks, and Larry doesn’t even answer. He grabs his wallet, his keys, his phone, kisses her on the cheek, and sprints down to the street, calling for a taxi.)

~

Cynthia finds out what happened in the morning when she uses the hotel phone to call his mobile. He doesn’t pick up - it goes straight to voicemail - so she calls the hospital next and Larry tells her in small words about Heidi leaving her suicide note on his voicemail. How he found her in the bathtub.

Cynthia starts crying while he explains, slumped against the side of the bed in their hotel room. She cries hard. Larry lets her go a few minutes later when he says he needs to go home and clean up. She tells him she’ll be on the next flight home, and hangs up.

Cynthia screams.

She tried to kill herself. She dropped Evan off with Alice Kleinman, walked home, called Larry, and worked up the nerve to slit her wrists in her bathtub. Cynthia cries so hard, wondering why she didn't say something. Why didn't she ask if she was okay? Why didn't she say she'd be there? Why didn't Heidi call _her_?

(“ _Why did you call_ me _?" The question comes out too quickly, and Cynthia mentally chastises herself for being too curious. "Why not Larry?"_ __  
  
"I didn't want him to have to deal with this." Heidi replies, gesturing to her general person. There's a sad look on her face that Cynthia wants to remedy but doesn't know how. "He's not good at emotional stuff like this. He gets frustrated. I trust you to be a little more empathetic.")

God, she feels so dumb. After all, this time, even though Heidi has no idea, Cynthia cannot process that the girl she's loves - yes, _loves_ , she can finally admit it - tried to kill herself and left her suicide note on her husbands voicemail. She could be dead right now. The girl she loves could be dead and Cynthia wouldn't have done anything to stop it.

Cynthia wonders if this is how Jeffrey felt after finding out about Millie. Cynthia wonders if it even compares.

~

She gets home two days later and the minute she sees Heidi she throws herself into her arms, weeping. She didn’t know she was so scared that Heidi would die until she sees her standing there, gaunt and pale, but _alive_.

Heidi is still, but her grip on Cynthia is strong. Her chest rises and falls evenly, and her pulse flutters against the bridge of Cynthia’s nose. Her skin is warm. She isn’t dead. She is alive.

Cynthia doesn't know what she says, just knows it all comes flooding out of her mouth. But not the things she wants to say. Not _I'm sorry._ Not _I love you._ Not _why?_ Just, “Oh, god, I was so worried. I didn't sleep. I got here as soon as I could. I'm so glad you're here, you're _here_.”

She pulls away and Heidi is wearing a look she can't read. A look that one would give a stranger when they're too polite to tell them to fuck off. Cynthia feels alienated, like Heidi doesn't want her there. Larry takes her hand, carefully.

“Heidi,” she says.

Heidi nods, vaguely, and follows Larry’s motions towards the car. They drive her home. It's silent all the way there, with Heidi in the passenger seat, and Cynthia in the back. There's a tenseness between Larry and Heidi, and while Cynthia can guess what it is, it feel like more than that. More than _how could you do this to me_ and _I just want you to be okay._ Cynthia doesn't ask.

Alice Kleinman is sitting on the couch, when they arrive, holding Evan to her shoulder, she looks up when they all enter, and while her expression is conflicted, she stands and holds Evan out to Heidi. For the first time since Cynthia saw her, today, Heidi’s expression breaks open to something raw. She looks at Evan like he's the moon and the stars and like she would be dead even if Larry hadn't saved her if Evan wasn't there.

It's the most brutal and honest love Cynthia has ever seen, and the sight of it makes her feel sick. She knows Heidi will never look at her like that, and knows that no one's ever looked at her like that, not even Larry. She doesn't say anything, she just watches Heidi hug her son to her chest and start crying.

(It's the first time she's seen her cry. Cynthia has no idea what to do.)

~

They go home to their new house across town from Heidi, and Cynthia gazes around at the packed boxes everywhere. They were supposed to have an unpacking party after getting back from their honeymoon. That's not happening, now.

Instead, they go upstairs and lie down on their bed, new mattress and sheets and everything. And they try to sleep. Larry rests his hand on her stomach, and his breathing slows, becoming even and soft. Cynthia can't sleep. Every time she closes her eyes, she's back in that hotel room, crying, on the floor, trying to push away the feelings of love and horror that rose when she found out.

Every time she closes her eyes, she sees the blood stains on the floor outside the bathroom at Heidi’s house. She sees the way Larry was bent over himself in the waiting room looking lost and not quite there.

She breathes out, shakily.

“Do you love her?”

He stills. No breath.

“Heidi?”

“Yes. Do you love her?”

She's staring at the window. The street lights outside are reflecting on the glass, and spilling onto the floor. It's too bright, too much, Cynthia squeezes her eyes shut.

“Tell me.”

“Yes.” There's a pause. She almost expects him to ask her _do you?_ But no more words come. She wishes he would. If she could say it out loud she doesn't think she'd be imploding like this.

Larry doesn't ask, even though she's sure he knows. Why won't he ask? Why can't she say it? It would be so easy. Just to say _me too._

But he doesn't ask, so she doesn't say anything.

~

The next day they go back to Heidi’s, even though Cynthia thinks everyone needs to stop for a second and take a breath. They go over, and while Cynthia explains that it isn't charity to pay for someone's therapist, Larry scrubs the floor and the bathtub of its blood. Cynthia couldn't do it. Seeing it splattered and dried all over the tiles had almost sent her into a panicking spiral.

Heidi is reluctant to go see someone about how she's feeling - because she's been feeling like this for a while. Since the summer before senior year. Cynthia should've noticed. She frowns at the floor. “No one needs to know how I feel. It's not even important to me.”

“How you're feeling is important to me.” Cynthia replies, and inches a bit closer. “I really think this will help you.”

She looks up. Cynthia should have known. She looks miserable.

“Even if it doesn't help, at least we tried.” No answer. “Right?”

It'll help. Cynthia’s sure. Larry exits the bathroom with a bowl full of bloody water and red stains on the knees of his jeans. It’s that or Heidi actually dies, and Cynthia won’t allow that.

~

Larry and Cynthia don’t talk about what he said. They don’t talk about how they’re both in love with Heidi Hansen - how her close call almost killed them, too, how they can’t stay away from her, how they’re both jealous that she’s trying to work things out with the father of her child. Cynthia supposes it’s because Larry doesn’t actually know that she’s in love with Heidi.

It confuses her, because she knows she loves him, and she knows she loves her, but how can that be possible? Is she broken? Is she greedy? Is she wrong?

Cynthia doesn’t tell him.

They try to bring brightness back into their lives. They dance around the house as they unpack, they buy a cot and toys and things for the baby, and Cynthia kisses him, trying to convince him that while she may be broken, he should still love her. She doesn’t tell Larry that she thinks she’s broken.

That’s not something he needs on his shoulders.

~

He’s always running to Heidi, always running away from her.

Except that when he comes back he’s not relieved. He’s just sad.

Heidi told her that when he was younger he had promised he’d never cry again, and he doesn’t cry now. He just says Heidi needs space.

They give her space.

~

It’s not so sudden as the way it was with Heidi. There’s no blood, there’s no screaming. She just calmly wakes Larry, and they drive to the hospital together. He holds her hand through all of the pain, and then he holds her free hand while she holds their baby boy, for the first time.

Larry looks awed, Cynthia feels invincible, for a moment, knowing she’ll love this little boy for the rest of her days.

~

Heidi gets married. There’s no big wedding. Cynthia doesn’t expect there to be - lord knows Heidi’s never wanted one of those. Apparently she and Steven went down to city hall and signed a document and that was it.

She hasn’t seen Heidi since right after her suicide attempt. She never got to tell Heidi about her son.

Heidi doesn’t reach out, so they don’t either.

(Cynthia feels like she’s standing beside a busy road, trucks rushing by, making her sway. She feels like one step forward will make all of this seem so much less sad, and hopeless, and inevitable.)

(She feels like a truck drifting, unable to stop, unable to miss the girl standing by the road.)

(She feels like she’s in the moment before destruction, before everything goes downhill.)

(She feels like she’s _dying_.)

~

So much time passes.

She has a daughter, a beautiful little girl, and she names her Zoe. Zoe is only a year younger than Connor, and he's too young to understand that he has a little sister, but he holds her delicately, just the same. Larry’s holding Connor’s hands with his own, to make sure he doesn't drop Zoe, and he's smiling at Cynthia.

Cynthia smiles back, even though she doesn't feel like smiling. She feels like crying, and she doesn't know why. Isn't this supposed to be happy? Wasn't it happy last time? Didn't she feel over the moon to be finally holding Connor?

She doesn't know. She doesn't tell Larry. She holds Zoe, and smiles down at her while Larry takes a picture. Cynthia feels like she's trapped behind a wall of glass, trapped from the rest of the world, and it came on so fast that she can't figure out what brought it on.

(Maybe, somewhere in her subconscious, she blames the little girl asleep in her arms. Maybe she continues to blame that little girl for a long time. Maybe she spends so much time blaming that little girl for the sudden loss of positivity in her brain that she forgets to look out for her little boy.)

(Maybe that's why she doesn't realise that his smile is waning the same way Heidi’s did, until it's too late.)

~

He’s sitting in the passenger seat, looking half-dead, and incredibly out of it. His clothes are rumpled and dirty, and he smells like sweat and weed and blood and another thing Cynthia doesn’t want to think about. His hair is a bit matted. The bags under his eyes have deepened. They’re bloodshot too. She’s not sure if it’s the tears welling in his eyes or the drugs.

She’s already texted Larry. He already knows, and he’s gonna call Zoe and the police, and they’ll meet up at the station so they can work it all out. Cynthia’s dreading it. She knows that Zoe cares, but when she sees Connor she’ll let all her walls go back up. And Larry - he’s unpredictable.

Cynthia looks down at her hands. She always thought she'd be better at this stuff than she is. Connor actually looks sorry, and he hasn't looked like that in a while. Not since the eighth grade. Something about the fact that he looks sorry makes her shiver.

"Do you know how much you scared me?" She whispers.

Connor starts crying. Cynthia only feels cold

"I thought you were _dead_ , Connor." His shoulders shake. He's bent over on himself, folded in as if he can somehow make this stop by curling in and pulling his knees up to his chest. She remembers the way Larry had done that, the way he used to curl in on himself, and she wonders how it passed on to Connor. "I thought I was looking for your _corpse_."

"I wouldn't _do_ that-" he says, but he breaks off, pulling his arms tighter around his shins and crying harder. He hasn't cried like this, in front of her, in years. Not since the tie and all the bar mitzvahs he wasn't invited to.

Cynthia can't think of that crying little boy when the young man in front of her is probably still high. "No more of this." She says, her voice steely and set. "It's time you went to rehab. You can't live like this, Connor. This is the last time I'm going to help you."

He looks up, eyes overflowing with tears, a stricken look on his face that reminds her too much of sitting in the waiting room while Heidi screamed and Larry squeezed her hand. "You're my _mom_." He says, in an almost pleading manner.

"And as your mother I need to teach you that the world will not pick you up when you fall down, and you can't rely on people to do that for you." Cynthia doesn't know what she's saying anymore. She's just angry and upset and so scared. What would she have done if he'd died? How could she cope? He doesn't get how it feels, yet, doesn't understand that not knowing if someone you love is dead or not is just as bad as them being dead. "You need to learn to pick yourself up."

"Mom-" His voice cracks and she sobs, suddenly, loudly.

"Connor. Just _stop_." She says, and he doesn't say another word, just buries his face in his knees and continues to cry. "You scared me. I can't take any more of this. You know that, right?"

"I'm sorry." It’s muffled, but she hears it all the same.

" _I'm sorry_ isn't good enough when the police are out looking for you.” Cynthia’s voice is rising. She’s never shouted at him before. Never had to go that far. He knew how much he could push her, had never crossed the line before. And now here he is. In enemy territory. “The _police_ , Connor. God, even Zoe's searching for you." “Why do you _care_ ?” He suddenly asks, looking up from his knees. He looks even more wrecked than he did when she dragged him out of that hellhole. He looks angry and upset and hopeless. “All of you! _Why_ do you care? You don’t seem to notice when I _am_ home, so who _cares_ when I’m _not_?”

He looks so manic, like he can’t process anything as he’s saying it, or as he’s saying it. “You could have _died_ , Connor!” She says instead of trying to soothe him. She understands, now, why Larry’s always going for fight instead of flight the way she always has. It’s so much more inviting to fight back.

“And what does that _matter_?” And she freezes

(Don’t teenagers think they’re invincible? Don’t they think nothing bad could possibly happen to them? Doesn’t _he_ think that?)

Connor stares at her, breathing hard, swallowing sobs before they can force any more vulnerability out of him. He’s too vulnerable already. Cynthia watches the way his broad and set shoulders curl inwards and he slumps forward, losing all the momentum keeping him upright.

“Just take me to the station so we can get this over with.” Connor says, and cries with his face against the window the entire drive there.

~

In the months that he’s gone Cynthia grieves.

She’s well aware that she’s lost the soft part of Connor she’s always loved. She’s well aware that that soft part is gone forever. She knows that whatever hope he was holding onto he let go of in that car.

Cynthia barely had to beg to get Larry to send Connor to rehab. Perhaps it was because the police recommended it. Perhaps it was because Connor hadn’t said a word. Perhaps he just wanted Connor out of the house.

(Cynthia wonders where the man who had adored his son had gone. She wonders where they both went.)

Larry’s sleeping in the guest room. Cynthia wonders if he’d let her sneak into his bed. She wonders when he stopped loving her like that.

Cynthia can't understand why Larry doesn't seem to care. Before it all, he had been remote, sure, but he'd been there. Now, with everything going on, she can't reach him. He's withdrawn.

Cynthia is fucking lost.

She'd tried everything in the first place to keep him by her side. She's not dumb. She knows she's not as young and as pretty as she used to be, and if he so desired he could start an affair with any woman. He's just so distant. So unchanged by it all, as if Connor not being there isn't even a footnote.

Zoe seems barely affected by it. She’s out most days, with friends or whoever. Cynthia thinks she’s probably being hypocritical. The minute Connor was missing she was screaming his name in the streets, desperate, calling the police. Zoe is gone by the time Cynthia wakes up every morning, and comes home well after Cynthia’s gone to bed. Maybe because she’s not making an effort with her daughter is why her daughter is avoiding her.

She wants to send letters to Connor, wants to call, wants to visit, but she doesn’t know what she would say. Doesn’t even know if he’d listen. She thinks he hates her. She doesn’t want to ask.

“Ma’am?” Cynthia looks up. She’s still standing at the counter at the supermarket. The attendant is staring at her with a worried expression on her face. “You still have to pay.”

The attendant gestures to the register and Cynthia comes back to life. “Of course. Excuse me.” She pulls her card out of her wallet and pays, quickly, embarrassed. She exits the supermarket in a similar way. She can’t believe she was just standing there, like that, completely losing it at the supermarket. She just wants to cry, because everything’s falling apart and she can’t hold everything together.

She’s loading everything into the boot of her car when someone taps her on the shoulder. Cynthia turns and comes to face with a blonde woman wearing glasses and holding a designer handbag.

“Oh my god,” says the woman in a voice that is too familiar, “Cynthia Holtzer?”

She hasn’t been Cynthia Holtzer since high school. She stares at the woman, hoping her brain will catch up with her, for a second.

It fucking hits her when the woman smiles. “Layla?” She whispers. The woman beams at her and yanks her into a tight hug.

“Cyn, it's been so long!” Layla says, excitedly, sounding like she’s really, truly pleased to see Cynthia. “Gosh, how are you? How've you been? What's happened? Tell me everything!”

Layla helps Cynthia load her groceries into the boot of her car, and then Cynthia takes them to a café by the waterfront where she and Larry used to have dates when she was still pregnant with Connor, and they were young enough to think everything would turn out alright.

Cynthia tells her about meeting Larry, about getting married right after graduation. She tells her about having Connor and Zoe, about how Connor’s about to go into senior year, and how they're all so proud of him. (She leaves out Heidi - lord knows she's not going to tell Layla Nister of all people that she's been in love with her husband’s best friend since she laid eyes on her.)

(She leaves out Connor running away, Connor overdosing, Connor throwing things and screaming at Zoe through her bedroom door. She leaves out that Larry’s sleeping in the guest bedroom, at the moment.)

And she asks about Layla, who's been sitting so politely, listening to Cynthia talk about her seemingly perfect life. Layla starts to cry.

Layla talks about staying in the town, staying in a relationship with Jeffrey that quickly deteriorated. How he wanted more from her than she was really willing to give. They got married right after graduation, too, but Layla was a little more nervous about it than she wanted to be. Jeffrey was rash about his decisions, kept calling her Millie when he kissed her, or when they had sex.

And then he started hitting her. Whenever things got slightly bad, he'd hit her until she collapsed to the floor. Of course, the next morning, he'd apologise and cry, saying he never wanted to hurt her, _please don't leave me, Layla, I love you._

Layla hadn't told him she was pregnant, but the night he decided to kick her stomach in, there was blood all over the floor, and that was the night she left him. She pressed charges of abuse, but his family paid her to shut up, so Layla filed for a divorce and moved away. She's been travelling since then, trying to work out what she wants to do with her life.

“I'm so glad I saw you.” Layla admits, sipping her probably cold coffee. “I've wanted to contact you for a while now, but I never got the chance, I could never find you. You left so suddenly, you didn't even say goodbye.”

Cynthia shrugs, uncomfortably. “Sorry about that. It was a sudden thing. If my dad hadn't taken the position when he did, we could have missed it.”

She nods, in understanding. “I've been trying to find myself since I left Jeffrey, trying to figure out who I am outside of Millie’s death and our relationship, and I hope that you'll understand if I tell you I think I went about all of this the wrong way.”

“Hm?” Cynthia prompts through a sip of her chai latte. Layla looks nervous, eyes creased behind her thick framed glasses. A stray blonde hair falls loose of her stylish bun and into her face, and she brushes it away, swallowing a lump in her throat.

“All my life, I've been trying to understand what it is that I find attractive about men, because all my life my mother encouraged me to settle down with someone who was attractive and rich, you know how my mom was.” She pauses, nervously, and taps her fingernails against her coffee cup. “But recently, it struck me that maybe I don't find men attractive at all.”

“What are you saying?” She asks, curiously. It's so good to be focusing on something other than her family troubles, for once. Cynthia feels like she's been shut off from the real world for too long.

Layla purses her lips, looks down at the table, and says, “I think I'm gay.”

“Oh.” Is the only thing that comes out of Cynthia’s mouth. It had never occurred to her that perhaps Layla was embarrassed when Cynthia saw her and Jeffrey making out, or to perhaps she wasn't too comfortable being hugged to his side at every movie night, that perhaps the sleepovers with Cynthia, just Cynthia, were a breather.

It never occurred to her that maybe Layla saw Cynthia's longing looks, and that maybe she was gazing, longingly back.

“I know. It's a bit weird.” Layla admits, rubbing the back of her neck, awkwardly. “I _feel_ weird about coming out in my thirties. Isn't this a teenager thing?”

“No, no, I think…” Cynthia trails off, wondering what she does think. She's just so caught up trying to figure out if her high school crush could have seen her the way Cynthia saw her. “You should come out when you come out. I don't think it matters how old you are.”

Layla smiles at her, eyes shining with a new wave of unshed tears. “Thanks, Cyn.” She says, reaching across the table to grasp Cynthia’s free hand. Her palm covers her engagement and wedding rings, hiding them from sight, almost like they're not there. “I knew you'd understand.”

“No problem.” Cynthia murmurs.

There's a long pause where it's just Cynthia and Layla, staring at each other, over a table where their hands are clasped together, and Cynthia can't help but wonder what if everything had been different. What if it had been her and not Jeffrey who she had pressed up against the wall, in the backseat of her car, who she married, as insane as it is. What if she had stayed in that small town, with Layla, never met Larry and Heidi.

Would it all be different? Would Heidi still sleep with Steven Patel at that fourth of July party? Or would she sleep with Larry? Would she still get pregnant? Would she still try to kill herself? If Cynthia had never appeared, would Heidi and Larry be in love?

Layla breaks her reverie. “Well, I'd better get going.” She says, somewhat reluctantly, and pulls her hand away. Cynthia immediately misses her warmth. “I'm doing a whole ‘self-discovery roadtrip’ thing and my next stop is about three hours away.”

“Oh, yes,” Cynthia says, and stands, not bothering to finish her coffee, “I'll let you go.”

“It was so good to see you, though, Cynthia.” Layla tugs her into another hug. “Keep in touch?”

“Yeah, of course.” She agrees and they walk to their cars. “I'll track you down on Facebook, or something.”

“Yeah.” Layla smiles at her, and there's something haunting in that smile. Cynthia left that part of her life behind a long time ago, so seeing a remnant of it like this is more than disorienting. “See you.”

“See you.” Cynthia echoes as Layla climbs into her car and drives away.

~

She kisses Larry when she gets home, and he pulls back, looking down at her with a slightly confused look on his face. “What's going on?” He asks, softly.

Cynthia swallows and shakes her head. “I'm just trying to remember why I married you.”

~

She has him back for three, maybe four days before there's a thump and deafening silence from his room. She doesn't think much of it, at first, and then she knocks on his door, maybe a minute later, telling him that dinner’s ready. And he doesn't answer. And she twists the door handle but no matter how hard she pushes the door won't open.

Cynthia’s been _terrified_ of this the entire time so the minute she realises what the thump was, why she can't open his bedroom door, she's screaming for Larry to help her open Connor’s door.

And Cynthia’s already crying by the time Zoe and Larry have gotten the door open, already knowing what's lying in wait, inside. She already knows what makes Larry stop dead in his tracks, in the doorway.

She knows why Zoe is screaming at him. “Why are you just _standing_ there?” Screams her daughter, looking panicked, trying to push past him. “ _Help him_!”

Zoe shoves at his shoulder, shoving him further and further into the room until Larry snaps out of his reverie and stumbles towards Connor. Cynthia slumps against the wall, hand to her mouth, sobbing so hard she can barely breathe. There's shuffling and thumping and then Larry’s kneeling on the floor, beside Connor, yelling at Cynthia to _call a fucking ambulance, already._

The ambulance arrives ten minutes later, and Cynthia’s still slumped against the wall, and Connor is dead.

_(There. Get it, yet?)_

~

She cries through the next five days. She cries through her phone call to Heidi, who needs up kneeling on her kitchen floor, holding her to her chest like a child who's skinned their knee.

She cries through meeting Evan, Heidi’s son, in the principal's office, and his stunned refusal to believe that Connor’s dead, that Connor addressed his suicide note to him, that Connor cared enough about him for that.

She cries through the next few nights, her door locked so that even if Larry wanted to he couldn't enter their room. It doesn't matter. After that night, she wouldn't let him in if the house was on fire. Cynthia curls her knees up to her chest, around her belly, protectively. Connor is dead. Her son, her baby boy, is dead. And there was nothing she could do to stop it.

_(“Cyn, please, it's okay, she's okay.”_

_“But what if she hadn't been, Larry? What if you had been too late?”_

_“I couldn't live with myself if I'd been too late.”)_

Zoe acts like nothing changed. She's a bit more biting and sarcastic than usual, and not shy about how much she's glad that Connor’s gone (even if she doesn't say those particular words). She doesn't seem to care, past asking if Cynthia wants some tea, every so often.

The answer is always no, but she still asks.

~

Evan looks a lot like Steven. He fidgets the way Heidi did when she felt like the awkward third-wheel. He speaks fast, but he means every word.

And Cynthia cries when she finds that her boy had a friend. Even though he chose for it all to end, he still had a friend.

Evan gives her emails, a secret correspondence they'd had since the beginning of the summer when Cynthia thought Connor had been in his deepest depression ever. Even then, he'd been talking to Evan, he'd been smiling at Evan, he'd been laughing with Evan.

It seems too good to be true, and Zoe attests to that, reading a few of the printouts and remarking, coldly, that they didn't sound like Connor.

Evan, so eager to keep them from each other's throats, twitching in his cast with Cynthia’s sons name scrawled across the front, protests, saying he and Connor had been very close. It wasn’t their fault. They were just that close.

Cynthia’s so deep down in her grief that she eats up every word. She finds herself drifting off to sleep with made up scenes in her head of Evan and Connor being happy, being okay. In her head, she hadn't dragged Connor from some crack den, that day, he'd been with Evan at the apple orchard. In her head, Evan visited him in rehab.

Cynthia sinks into the comfort of it. She begins to float.

~

(Larry doesn't cry at the funeral, even when she drags him into the bathroom, before the wake, and begs him to cry. She begs him to show her that he understands, he feels her pain, he knows her grief. But he just stands there, eyes hard, mouth set in a thin line, breaths short and choked.)

(He doesn't cry, and she wants to scream.)

~

There are moments when Cynthia falls into that empty, dark part of her brain, the horrible, awful part. The part that tells her this is all her fault.

If she hadn't turned up, there wouldn't be a Connor to lose, a Zoe to love but be distant from, an Evan to remember and learn

If she hadn't been there, if it had been Larry at that Fourth of July party, and not Steven Patel, would that make Evan Larry’s? Nowadays, Larry dotes on him as his own son, the way Connor had never let him dote. It seems such a good fit.

If it had been Larry and Heidi, not Larry and Cynthia, Evan would have a father, and Heidi would never work a day in her life, maybe would never have cut herself open in her family bathtub. Evan wouldn't be trying to pick up the pieces of a broken family, led there by her son's suicide note.

Cynthia remembers the first time she held Evan, as an infant. It was the day after Heidi had him. So they returned to check on her and Heidi had handed her son off to Cynthia. Cynthia walked up and down the hallway outside Heidi’s room with him in her arms as Larry held her and she cried. She let them have that.

She was mesmerised by this little boy with the blonde hair and the blue eyes and the tiny hands that reached for her.

Cynthia whispered to him that he was so lucky, such a lucky little boy, to have such a great, beautiful, talented mom. She told him that his mom was special, and that he should take good care of her.

She loved him as her own son in that hallway outside Heidi’s hospital room, when Larry was just her boyfriend, not her fiancé or her husband.

She whispered to him that soon, in a couple months time, she'd be having a little boy too. They could be best friends the way his mom and her boyfriend were. She hoped they would be.

He's grown into a fine young man. Even Zoe grumbles that she agrees, that he's _okay_ and _not a total loser, I guess._

Cynthia remembers that, with relish, and cries when she realises she was right, but not in the way she wanted to be, at the time.

~

Evan helps everyone to remember her boy.

Cynthia feels Larry climb into bed, behind her. She left the door unlocked for him, hoping he'd come back.

They sleep in the same bed for the first time in almost a year. They hold each other, and Cynthia cries for her son.

~

So it goes. Everything eventually falls apart, no matter how fast she runs to stick it all back together.

She’s out of breath, she’s sore, she’s scared and catatonic.

And it was all a lie. One big lie.

Cynthia’s not sure which of them it hits the hardest. Zoe looks on the edge of tears. This boy she’d probably been in love with was lying. Larry just looks in pain. Lips set thin, eyes hard and forgiving.

And what about Cynthia? Shoved in the background Cynthia? Grieving Cynthia? One-dimensional Cynthia?

She feels cold.

She runs after Zoe, afraid that if she doesn’t, she’ll lose her forever, afraid that if she stays in that room she’ll suffocate, afraid that she’ll have to watch that boy cry one more tear for what he’s done. She runs after her, up the stairs, into her room, watching Zoe throwing things out her window.

First to go is the small, dusty family portrait on her desk. Next is a pair of her shoes, vandalised with sharpie. Next is her guitar, raised over her head. Cynthia grabs her arm and rips the instrument from her daughters destructive grip.

Zoe fights against her as Cynthia drops the guitar on the bean bag in the corner of the room. She’s screaming.

“NO!” She cries, trying to push her out of the way. The front door slams, somewhere, downstairs, and Cynthia can’t help but wonder how Evan’s going to get home in this rain. “NO, I WANT HIM GONE! I WANT IT ALL GONE!”

Cynthia twists Zoe’s grip, and throws her arms around her. Zoe goes stiff. Cynthia wonders how long it’s been since she’s hugged her girl. She wonders whens she became so distant. When she forgot she had a daughter.

And Zoe sinks into her. She’s still yelling, but she’s crying too. She’s holding Cynthai like she’ll die if she lets go, and she’s crying.

“I loved him.” She admits through sobs, and Cynthia sits them both down on her unmade bed. “I loved him, and the whole time he was lying!”

“He fooled us all.” Cynthia whispers, and rocks Zoe. The rain is coming down harder, outside. She can’t even think about those people blaming them for what happened to Connor when the boy who brought them peace and then war is out in the rain, running from his mistakes.

She hopes he makes it home to his mother.

“But I gave him everything.” She sobs into Cynthia’s shoulder. Cynthia is oddly struck by the image of her own face after the first pregnancy test, the way she’d looked down from her ensuite mirror to her flat stomach. She was eighteen. She’d only ever been with Larry. She’d given him everything, and later given him even more, more than she knew she had to give.

“And you still have it all.” Cynthia assures her daughter, more sure of that than she had been staring at herself in the mirror, trying to differentiate her situation from Heidi’s. Zoe had given Evan everything, huh? She’d trusted that boy in a way Cynthia hadn’t known?

“No, mom, you don’t _get_ it.” Zoe says, and pulls away. She’s a mess, but the way she gestures to her body in an almost sickened way makes a wave of pain crash over Cynthia. “I gave him _everything_.”

Oh. Of course. Thunder booms overhead and Zoe flinches, crying harder. Oh, she gave him everything. She trusted him in only that secret way you can when you’re young and don’t know any better. It’s clear to Cynthia, now, that Zoe loved him deeply. Loved him enough to have her in hysterics over a broken heart.

Cynthia’s heart is broken, too. “We’ve all made mistakes.” Cynthia assures her. “That’s not what makes you you. Your mistakes don’t define you.”

Zoe looks lost. So lost.

A creaking in the doorway turns their heads, and there’s Larry. He looks exhausted, leaning on the door jamb. There are no tears. There never are.

Either way, Cynthia gestures for him to join them. Zoe bursts into new tears, and fresh ones of Cynthia’s own begin to trail down her cheeks. He sits on the floor by their feet, and leans his head in Cynthia’s lap. She trails her fingers through his hair, holding Zoe to her chest with her other hand.

And they sit there, together, as the storm around them rages, broken hearts all around, waiting for it to end.

~

She thinks, somewhere, in the back of her mind, she’s forgiven Evan. But it takes a while.

It takes a long while for Zoe to get over her broken heart, so when she tells Cynthia she’s going to meet him at the orchard, kind of a proper goodbye before she heads off to college, Cynthia is a little shocked.

But Zoe goes. And Cynthia’s alone in her kitchen, waiting for her to come home. She stares into her coffee mug, and sighs.

It still hurts - how could it not? Cynthia doesn’t think it’ll ever stop hurting. But it hurts less, nowadays. Of course, her heart still aches, and of course sometimes she goes to call him for dinner, only to remember he won’t ever come thumping down the stairs for dinner ever again. But it hurts less.

There’s a knock at the door, and that surprises her. Years ago, a knock at the door was never a surprise. Cynthia was a good hostess. But ever since everything started going downhill with Connor, she was a hostess less and less.

So she makes her way to the front door, wondering if Zoe ordered something online and forgot to mention it.

On the other side of the door is Heidi Hansen.

The urge to slam the door in her face is so strong that Cynthia almost does it. But something about Heidi, something about her set back shoulders, her chin elevated, her shuffling feet makes her stop. She looks like she did when they met, albeit older and more tired, but brighter, too.

Cynthia swallows. “Heidi.” She looks happy. Hesitant and cautious, but happy.

Larry came home late a week after Evan confessed and told her that Heidi helped him work it all out in his head. How messed up he's been all these years, how much he's kept inside him, how he's been drifting away, emotionally from all of the, for too long. Cynthia had been jealous, at first, that it had been Heidi who had finally broken down his walls.

But in the end she was thankful. Larry was healing, same as her. And he cried, sometimes. Cynthia held him through it all, promising to be there at the end.

Heidi had done that.

“Hi. I know it's been a while.” Heidi says, softly, and glances over Cynthia’s shoulder, as if looking for someone. She suspects she's looking for Larry.

“He's at work, today.” Cynthia informs her, stiffly, a little hurt, mostly resigned.

She cocks her head in confusion. “Who?”

“Larry.” After everything with Connor and Evan and that awful night in the rain, Larry began to take more days off work to be with his family, to help them rebuild without Evan. It helped more than Cynthia realised. He never slept in the guest room, anymore. It occurs to Cynthia that maybe Heidi saved her marriage.

The look on Heidi’s face is almost bashful. “I'm not here to see Larry.” Heidi tells her, followed by her clearing her throat. “I'm here to see _you_. I don't see you anymore.”

That’s a surprise. “Well, come in then.” Cynthia beckons her inside, shutting the front door behind her. “Do you want something to drink? Tea? Water?”

“No, thanks, I’m good.” It’s somehow less awkward than it had been, last time, in their living room, when they’d tried to give Evan Connor’s college fund. Perhaps because there’s not Evan between them this time means that they’re easier to return to the way things were.

Cynthia doesn’t really remember them before she was with Larry and Heidi was pregnant. Just that one afternoon, at A La Mode, talking about boys. Can they return to that?

“So,” Heidi begins as they stop in the kitchen. Heidi’s standing on the opposite side of the kitchen bench to Cynthia. The last barrier between them. “It’s been a while since it was just you and me.”

“It has.” Cynthia agrees, tightly.

A beat of silence. Heidi shuffles, in place, again. “How’ve you been?”

“Oh, don’t.” She sighs.

It’s like it was with Layla, at that cafe. It’s awkward and oddly out of place.

“Don’t what?” She asks, quietly.

“We can’t be _normal_.” Cynthia explains.

“We were _never_ normal, Cyn.” And doesn’t that just hit her like a fist to her stomach? Cynthia feels winded, hearing her old nickname slip from Heidi’s lips after years of silence.

“But you can’t pretend that we are, now.” She manages to hiss, bracing herself, subtly, on the kitchen bench.

Heidi raises an eyebrow, but her expression is somber. “Then what do you want me to pretend?” She asks, softly. That’s the girl Cynthia loved. Even through the blood and the yells and the silences, she had loved her, but standing in front of her, soft and hesitant and bright, is the girl she fell for.

“I don’t.” Cynthia tells her, and wishes she’d stop fucking _glowing,_ like everything was alright, when Cynthia knows it’s not. “I just want you to say what you came to say, no pretense.” _Before I get lost on you._

Heidi stiffens a bit, in the shoulders, and she bites her lip, eyes on the bowl of apples in the middle of the kitchen table. “Your daughter is leaving for college soon, isn’t she?”

It’s not what Cynthia expected her to say. She nods, dumbly, anyway. Heidi nods back.

“Evan is, too.” Another punch. Is Heidi trying to kill her? “I just...the house is going to be so empty without him. I figured you felt the same way.”

“I have Larry.” She snaps and Heidi almost flinches.

“I know you do.” She says, grimly, a hard look flickering in her eyes for half a second. “You always have.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cynthia asks, even though she already knows.

“Nothing.” Heidi waves it away, expression settling once more. “I just thought maybe we could lean on each other.”

“What makes you think that I…?” Cynthia doesn’t know what Heidi thinks. She’s already forgiven Evan, whether he knows it or not, and she’s made peace with Zoe. Larry’s around so much more, now. Why does she need Heidi?

But, then again, maybe Heidi needs her.

And, looking at her now, closer, with more scrutiny, she does see the cracks in her old friend. She sees the seams which had ripped so long ago, she sees the lines where she shattered. Heidi’s wearing a t-shirt. The scars on her wrists are silver and faded, but there. It never occured to Cynthia that Heidi came here for help.

“Why didn’t you just say?” Cynthia murmurs, half in tears, and she sees the hopeful way Heidi opens up. Almost _thank god, you get it._ Cynthia rounds the bench and gathers her into her arms.

She can put it all behind her. She can support her through it all, so long as Heidi supports her back. She holds her, tightly, trying to renew herself, in that moment. It doesn’t have to be history repeating itself, it doesn’t have to be them teasing each other about boys in an ice cream parlour.

It can just be them, being friends, without anything between them. It can be new and old. It can be so much better than before.

Cynthia wants it to be. She’s ready for that.

 

**fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed (?) this, please let me know all about it in the comments, and consider leaving me a kudos. You can hunt me down on Tumblr @nose-coffee. Yes, I am planning a third installment, yes, it's Larry-centric, and yes, it's gonna be just as painful and full of pining. BIG THANKS to my brilliant, gorgeous gf for reading this over, fixing mistakes, and encouraging me when I felt like crap.
> 
> Once again, thanks for reading!


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